MAGIC HISSED THROUGH Sajda Ali’s blood, stinging her skin as she swept her long black hair into a ponytail, careful to leave the sides low enough to cover most of her ears. She ignored the bite of the magic she’d inherited from the father she’d never met and tucked her black shirt into her black pants as the underground prison of Maqbara slowly came to life around her.
She’d overslept, a rare mistake that would have cost her dearly if the warden had been in residence, but the woman hadn’t returned yet from her trip to negotiate for a shipment of monstrous creatures from the remote desert villages that dotted the Samaal. Frustration hummed through Sajda. She might not be in trouble for oversleeping, but she’d missed most of her opportunity to work on the only thing that truly mattered to her: a way to escape.
After splashing water on her face, she rubbed some on the tiny raised scars that crisscrossed the skin beneath the cuffs she wore—a reminder of the times when the magic in her blood had fought the rune-inscribed iron that was meant to keep it at bay. Every year, the warden locked new cuffs on Sajda’s wrists, the freshly carved runes keeping the iron free from rust and trapping the magic in her slave’s blood. And every year Sajda dreamed of finding a single instant, a tiny sliver of time between one cuff falling to the floor and the other one snapping into place when she could use her magic to overpower the warden and gain her freedom. But the warden was too smart to unlock an old cuff before the new one was in place, and Sajda didn’t have the luxury of dreams that would never come true. She hurried from her room. There was still time to make progress on her plan if she moved quickly.
Besides, she didn’t want to be caught alone in the fifth floor corridor when the iron bars opened to let the prisoners out of their cells. The last time that happened had been disastrous. She was still nervous about the precarious lie she’d spun to keep the prisoners from suspecting what she really was. It was hard to explain how a sixteen-year-old girl had nearly broken a tall, muscular man in half for attacking her.
She could handle two or three prisoners attacking at a time. She couldn’t survive an onslaught from the entire prison, and she had no doubt that’s what she’d be facing if the inmates of Maqbara ever learned the truth.
Shutting her door firmly behind her, she locked it and then moved swiftly down the corridor. The prison was lit with the subtle glow of dawn breaking through the dusty skylights set far above the cells that were carved like a honeycomb out of the bedrock beneath Akram’s capital city. The faint thud of hoofbeats clipped along the packed dirt streets aboveground, sending puffs of dust spinning into the faint beams of sunlight like bits of gold, and eerie cries of hunger drifted out of the stalls that housed the prison’s current population of monstrous beasts.
Sajda held her head high as she followed the narrow passage that wound around the fifth level, in full view of the prisoners who were now awake and waiting for the iron bars at the mouth of their cells to rise. To one side, a railing separated the corridor from the vast empty space of the arena far below. The first four levels of the prison were nothing but platforms of seats encircling the combat ring. The cells began on the fifth level. Each of Maqbara’s fifteen levels hugged the outside wall and was joined to the rest of the prison by narrow sets of stairs cut into the stone every thirty cells.
The light streaming in through the skylights at the top of the prison changed from faint yellow to rosy gold. The sun was up in Akram, and the aristocracy would be getting ready for an afternoon of bloody entertainment at the arena, though to their credit most of them attended simply because Prince Fariq had made it clear that those who didn’t would fall out of royal favor and be sanctioned accordingly.
Sajda moved faster as the prisoners began beating their bars with their fists, their voices raised as she passed.
“There she is. Pretty girl. Maybe you should join me in my cell tonight.”
“It’s the warden’s slave. Think you’re better than me? Lift these bars and find out.”
“Better stop ignoring me, ehira, or you’ll be sorry.”
Fear was a jagged blade slicing through her, sending her magic churning. The skin beneath her rune-carved cuffs burned as the iron crippled her magic, leaving her with enough power to defend herself against a few humans but without the ability to do the one thing she’d longed for since the warden bought her from an auction block when she was just five years old: escape.
The prisoners’ voices rose, and Sajda moved rapidly toward the staircase. “They’re just words,” she whispered to herself. To her magic. They were words she’d become so accustomed to, she no longer heard them. Just the voices. The tones. The thin line between bravado and intent that would tell her if she needed to watch herself around one of the prisoners.
The fifth level was where the most dangerous prisoners were kept. These were the men and women who’d beaten their way up the rankings of the last few tournaments. Who’d survived every bloodbath with a body count in their wake. These were the top contenders for this year’s prize, though there were plenty of newer prisoners who were hungry to take their place.
None of it was Sajda’s problem. She simply had to keep the prison stocked with vicious beasts, run the tournaments that lined the warden’s and Prince Fariq’s pockets with coin, and stay alive.
Most of all, she had to stay alive.
Rounding the corner to the stairwell, she plunged down the steps until she reached the arena’s floor. Hurrying around its outskirts, she entered the double row of iron stalls that hugged the wall closest to the hall that led to the warden’s office.
Drawing in a slow, unsteady breath, Sajda ducked into the stalls, her body now blocked from view by the iron wall that kept the prisoners from seeing the predators they’d be facing in the ring. Howls and hisses filled the air as she moved quickly toward the last stall on the right.
“Hush,” she whispered. “You’ll get fed in a few minutes.”
Her words went unheeded, and she rolled her eyes. It was a testament to the amount of time she spent around monstrous things that she’d started talking to them as if they could somehow understand her.
The last stall on the right was currently empty, though that would change with the next delivery. Shoving a drift of hay aside with her boot, she grabbed the small ax she’d hidden there years ago.
Pausing for a moment, she held perfectly still and listened.
No footsteps. No clamor from the beasts as someone other than Sajda walked through the stalls.
She was alone.
A hay trough, roughly the length of Sajda’s legs and the height of her waist, rested against the far wall. Sajda pushed it aside. Dust fell from the opening behind it. Ducking, she crawled through a tunnel that was only slightly wider than she was. After several paces, the tunnel opened up enough to allow her to crouch. She’d hollowed out a space nearly as big as her room with the idea that if the prisoners ever turned on her, she’d have a place to hide, though hiding wasn’t her goal. Escaping was.
Moving through the hollowed space, she reached the back where another tunnel was burrowing through the stone. It wasn’t much—she couldn’t even fit her entire body in it yet—but it was a start. One day, it would lead all the way out of Maqbara, up through the bedrock, and into the open air of the city itself.
Pressing her lips together to keep the dust from getting in her mouth, Sajda began swinging the ax. Bits of rock chipped away, falling into a heap as she painstakingly scraped another thin layer off the back of the tunnel.
Sweat dotted her brow as she finished what she could for the day. Hurriedly scraping the rock shavings into her hand, she stuffed them into her pants’ pocket and left the tunnel. She pushed the trough back in place, hid the ax, and left the stall. She was swinging the door closed when a voice from her right said, “Busy morning, eh, little one?”
Sajda spun, her fists clenched, magic itching in her blood. A short, stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair, a bushy beard, and kind eyes stood two stalls away, his left hand rubbing the arthritic knuckles on his right.
“Tarek, you startled me.” Sajda’s voice was low and calm, though magic still sparked along her skin, painful little nips that burned like ice. She stalked past him and placed an open palm against the stone wall beside the entrance to the stalls to steady herself. Drawing in the solid, immovable strength of the rock—a trick she’d learned by accident her first week in the prison when, overwhelmed with fear and loneliness, she’d pressed herself against the wall and wished for its strength to become her own. She’d been shocked when the stone had obeyed.
Now, her pulse slowed, and the painful prickle of magic mixed with the essence of the rock and became a cold, unyielding calm encasing her like armor. Pain seared the skin beneath her cuffs and then subsided. Keeping her voice soft, she said, “I’ve warned you not to sneak up on me.”
His smile revealed a missing front tooth—courtesy of the one and only stint he’d done in the arena eight years ago. “Sorry, little one. Thought you would’ve seen me. Must have been lost in your own thoughts again.”
“I could’ve hurt you.”
Tarek’s smile gentled as he handed her an orange from the prison’s kitchen. “You’d never hurt me.”
“Not on purpose.” Sajda stood beside the older man. “Where’s your breakfast?”
“Cook wasn’t finished with the porridge yet. I’ll go back up in a bit and get some.”
Sajda frowned. “Make it quick. I have to feed the beasts, and I don’t like you going to the kitchen when the other prisoners are there unless I can go with you.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “Nobody cares to bother an old man like me.”
“Not if they know what’s good for them. Is Batula here yet?” Sajda asked.
“On her way.”
“Good.” Sajda tore into her orange and devoured the slices quickly. Within moments, Batula stood outside the stalls, her hands sheathed in leather gloves. Sajda had long since given up trying to guess how old she was. Maybe forty. Maybe eighty. Her golden skin was leathery and sagged along the edges, but her eyes were clear and she was strong enough to help Sajda wrestle the creatures into the arena. She’d lived in the prison since before Sajda’s arrival, and Sajda had never figured out if, like Tarek, Batula was a prisoner the warden was using for her own purposes, or if she owned Batula like she owned Sajda.
“Hurry along, now.” Batula gestured toward the sacks of food that lined the wall beside the stalls. “These beasties won’t feed themselves.” Batula reached for the crank on the wall that operated the pulley system for the cell doors. “Guards in place?”
Tarek craned his neck and scanned the fifteen levels above him, searching for the black-clad guards who entered the prison at dawn and left at dusk once the cell doors were back in place. “Guards are at their stations,” he said as one of the guards set the first bell tolling, its mournful tone rolling through the air, fat and thick.
“Another day in paradise.” Batula cackled as she turned the crank. The harsh clicking of metallic gears catching on chains filled the air, followed by the scrape of iron bars lifting into the stone ceilings. Prisoners poured out of their cells. Most headed toward the kitchen on the ninth level, but some came straight for the arena to get a look at the beasts they might be unlucky enough to face in the afternoon.
Sajda donned a pair of leather gloves and grabbed a sack of sheep innards delivered that morning by one of the local butchers. Breathing through her mouth to avoid the worst of the sickly sweet scent, she opened the sack and moved to the first stall. A man-size white worm was coiled inside a cistern of water. Sajda tossed a handful of sheep guts into the cistern and shuddered as the worm’s head whipped up, its jaw stretching wide to reveal a glistening row of sharp fangs.
“I hate the water beasts the most,” she muttered to Tarek as he threw guts to a gaunt wolflike creature with red eyes and foam dripping from its muzzle. “Though I think we’re having something worse in round three—”
“What have I told you about sharing details of the upcoming combat rounds?” A thick, gravelly voice spoke from behind Sajda.
Sajda’s stoic shield of calm cracked, a tiny fissure of pressure that snaked along its surface, finding her weaknesses and burrowing in as she whirled to find the warden standing at the entrance to the stalls.
“You’re back!” Sajda reached for the indifferent composure she’d borrowed from the stone, but it disintegrated beneath the menace on the warden’s face.
The woman’s iron-gray hair was pulled back in its customary bun, and one dark eye watched her slave. The other was hidden beneath a bandage that covered nearly half her face. When she caught Sajda staring at it, she said, “It pays to watch yourself. One moment of carelessness, and the tables turn on you. Do you want me to turn on you, slave?”
Sajda froze, her magic scraping at her skin like tiny knives, her breath clogging her throat as she fought to keep her fear out of her expression. “I didn’t share the tournament details with any of the competitors. It’s just Tarek—”
“Tarek is a prisoner. A criminal. I don’t trust criminals.” The warden stepped closer to Sajda, her tone venomous, and grabbed one of the iron cuffs around Sajda’s wrist. Heat rippled along the warden’s skin, sinking into the iron and burning Sajda’s scars until she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. “I don’t trust you, either. But I know how to control monsters. Isn’t that right?”
Sajda nodded, magic snapping impotently at the runes that glowed with heat along her cuff.
“Did you tell anyone else what to expect in the combat rounds?” the warden asked softly while the skin beneath Sajda’s cuff burned.
“No. I—”
“She didn’t even tell me anything,” Tarek said, his voice shaking with fury. “You don’t have to punish her.”
The warden whipped her gaze toward him, and Sajda instantly moved between them, her arm still trapped in the warden’s grip, her magic still throwing itself relentlessly at her palms as if testing the strength of the runes.
“It’s all right, Tarek.” Sajda tried to sound calm. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. You should just go get your breakfast with the other prisoners.”
“That’s right, Sajda. You shouldn’t have said anything.” The warden’s smile died before it reached her eyes. “If you want to continue living under my hospitality, you will perform your duties to perfection. That includes keeping secrets.” The warden yanked Sajda close, and the girl’s magic seared her skin. Lowering her voice, the warden said, “Unless you’ve decided that we’re going to start sharing each other’s secrets now.”
Sajda shook her head, her stomach tightening.
The warden cocked her head. “Is that a no?”
“No,” Sajda breathed.
Leaning close, the warden whispered, “Don’t get careless, slave. The only good elf is a dead elf, remember? We wouldn’t want the prisoners to know that the monster they fear the most walks among them.”